A/N: Because only an idiot like me would forget to use, oh, the best damn concept in Fight Club ever. Inspired also by the lovely, sexy, mind-bending fanart that made me go GUH, called "Wet Dream" on ghostfire's profile on Yaoi Gallery (18+, darlings, and mature content, le gasp! Tread with caution!).
Read and review if you like; it's fun! (Another word of caution! You should read Scarred first, though you can see how much you get reading this offhand?)
Burned
No one will miss me is what he ends up saying. Looking back on it, it lacks punch. Good last words to live by, if not a little depressing.
Like hell am I ever coming back, is what he almost said to Axel.
Like hell are you enough to make me stay.
Too dramatic, maybe.
He's never been good at goodbyes or hellos or any of that shit. So he goes on without them.
And he walks far, far, far away.
---
It isn't long before the pretty pale porcelain boy is wanted by someone else.
He's wanted by a man who's veiled in thick strips of red and lies, he's wanted by a man who wants to hold him hostage while another pretty porcelain boy (not so pale, this one) sleeps and sleeps on.
A man in a cloak looks at the pretty pale porcelain boy he captured and says: Poor thing.
It's the fate of a Nobody,and so Roxas forgets everything the instant he comes "home," the instant he comes to Paper Street on Twilight Town.
He forgets all the damn scars.
He forgets how he got them.
He even forgets why he wanted them in the first place.
---
Roxas' eyes glint like glass while Axel looks up at him, eyes swirling, cautious.
"You're sure you want this, Roxas?"
Roxas growls and lashes out at him.
"Did you not understand the first fifty times I told it to you? Yes, I want it. Yes, I know it's going to hurt. No, I don't give a fuck. So just do it, okay?"
---
Roxas thinks the nights he spends on Paper Street are the worst.
No.
That's not right.
The dreams are the worst, the fucking worst because he swears he can feel someone's gloved hands touching him, and a tongue at his neck, teeth biting at his ear. Lips lingering on his skin, and a hand tight around him. And hot hot heat all over, scars burning, heat pounding into him, so good, so hot.
And he shouldn't think that these touches are in any way familiar.
And a voice.
Thought you liked it like this, Roxas.
He's never felt anything like it before, or he doesn't remember such a thing.
The voice says Thought you'd remember something like this, Roxas, you're the one who requested it.
But it doesn't matter either way because in the morning no one's there and it's all just a dream.
Not like it really matters because dreams aren't real.
---
The man called Axel calls him blank with a capital B and Roxas can't remember this man or why he knows him or anything of the sort.
It's when Axel says that Roxas is coming with him (conscious or not) that Roxas knows that he's fucked either way, so it's not like he's going to get anything out of going with this strange man with the red hair and absinthe eyes called Axel. It's not like he's going to get anything out of staying here.
So he stays in the house on Paper Street when he's not with Hayner and Pence and Olette because no matter what, Twilight Town is where he is.
Twilight Town is home ("'home,' like you can ever call it that; people like us, Roxas, we don't have homes").
---
Axel's lips are shining wet when he places a kiss on Roxas' hand, like he's a king he's paying homage to.
Lye is a caustic solution made from ashes.
Axel's spit gleams on Roxas' pretty pale porcelain hand while the can of lye is tilted, hanging an inch above Roxas' hand.
Lye, which is also called sodium hydroxide, is very dangerous, but it only reacts with water. Or saliva.
"It's gonna hurt," Axel reminds him.
When lye gets onto someone's skin, and they get an injury, it's considered a chemical burn.
Roxas doesn't even flinch. "I know. Pour it."
And it hurts far worse than fire, since it heats to over two hundred degrees and it just burns and burns on you.
One more thing about lye: this kind of stuff would eat your eyes away to nothing and you'd be disabled for the rest of your dark sorry life.
Axel stares at Roxas, steady.
But lye makes scars that will never, ever, ever heal.
Roxas doesn't even blink. Quite the porcelain doll.
No matter what you do, that scar will never, ever, ever come off.
Roxas snaps. "Just do it."
And Axel pours the lye.
---
Roxas wakes up on the last day (not knowing that it's the last day) and all of a sudden he knows why he's waking up with a kiss burned into the back of his hand.
The blank spaces of his memory-dreams that may be real are finally filling in.
Not like it really matters because the world has been stopped and a voice announces that he must come to the mansion.
Not like it really matters because he soon has other things to worry about, like just why he's being called nobody.
Not like it really matters because his time's almost up.
Not like it really matters because in about three hours he's not even going to be himself anymore.
---
Far away, or maybe a little down the road, one man approaches what-used-to-be-his pretty pale porcelain boy.
And says:
You really do remember me this time? I'm so flattered!
---
Not like it really matters because now he's not even himself anymore.
If you call for Roxas now, he won't answer.
He's already long gone.
Obviously you didn't get it the first time, Axel.
Let's try again, shall we?
Please repeat after me:
Like hell is he coming back.
Like hell are you enough to make him stay.
---